Mouth-watering aromas of super-ripe spiced pears are found in the nose of the medium-bodied 2004 Pouilly-Vinzelles. Impressively deep, fleshy, and lush, it coats the palate with thick layers of spicy white fruits. Projected maturity: 2007-2013. Visiting the Valette family, whose home/estate is perched on Chaintre’s hillside affording views of the Saone valley (all the way to the Alps), is always a fascinating adventure. Ever since the family patriarch, Gerard Valette, left the local coop, he and his family have been fiercely independent, bucking both viticultural and winemaking traditions. For example, when all their neighbors had finished harvesting the 2003s, the Valettes were waiting for the fruit to be ripe, and when all their neighbors had bottled and shipped their 2004s, the Valettes’ were still undergoing elevage. Sadly, this outstanding, iconoclastic estate, whose offerings grace the finest restaurant wine lists in France, is no longer imported into the United States.No American importer.

Fresh pears, apples, and spices can be found in the nose of the 2002 Pouilly-Vinzelles. This rich, lush, medium-bodied effort has excellent depth, richness, and length. Its gorgeous mouth-feel coats the palate with honeyed minerals and velvety pears. Drink it over the next 4 years. French wine lovers are well aware that 2002 was a particularly difficult vintage in the south of France due to incessant rains, culminating in massive deluges at harvest time, yet to the north, in the Cote d’Or, there were almost drought-like conditions for most of the growing season, with the exception of a rainy period in late August/early September. What appears to be little-known, however, is that the demarcation line between the dry north and the wet south bisected the Maconnais. As Gerard Valette noted, “To make good wines, we needed to do a severe sort at harvest because we had gotten our fair share of the rains of the south, and therefore needed to cope with some rot.”Importer: Kysela Pere et Fils, Fran Kysela, Winchester, VA; tel. (540) 722-9228